Guardian Angel
by SaxonnyRETURNS
Summary: "Wait, let me guess. This is no ordinary gift for an ordinary woman, who pays her taxes and checks her apartment for Radon and rotates her tires every six months…am I right?"


I blame myself.

I knew better than to ride when the sky looked so dark and threatening, much less arrogantly deciding to ride alone.

My only excuse is: I just needed to get AWAY.

I know that without hard work and patience, you can t get anywhere in this life but why did life have to be so damn DIFFICULT all the time? Riding Sebastian, my chestnut Morgan, was one of the last outlets of freedom that I had, and soon he would be gone too. I can t afford to keep him anymore.

So naturally I wanted to take him out one last time and lose myself in the rushing of the wind, the blur of the scenery as he raced through the hills, the freedom and peace our time together gave me. Knowing it was the last time made it bittersweet. I didn t find the wind in my hair calming; instead it was just another reminder of what I had to give up in the name of responsibility.

I could blame the stinging in my eyes on the rising wind. Surely they weren't tears. I was selling him of my own free volition. It didn t make me feel any better. I m twenty five; there's no reason why I should be this upset about doing the right thing. I had raised Sebastian from a foal, I had found a good family with two daughters who assured me they would love and care for him as much as I had. With the money from the sale I would be able to pay off the creditors that were surrounding me and my family like a pack of vultures.

So what was there to be sad about? I had to smile while I was crying.

Lo and behold, because I was wallowing in misery and self-pity, I didn't notice the storm clouds until it was too late. A hard gust of wind drew me out of my sadness, and I looked up in surprise. It was the middle of the day but the sky was positively black.

"Oh shit." This did not look good. Even Sebastian, who had been racing with the breeze, drew up short and snorted nervously.

As I watched, the bloated sky ruptured, and fat raindrops began to pelt down in the ground. One instant I was dry, the next my clothes were plastered to my skin. I could barely see the trail through the downpour.

I was about to nudge Sebastian around and back towards the stables when a bolt of lightning crashed into a tree a few yards away, the crack of thunder so loud my ears rang. I gasped and yelled at the same time, for all the good it did: I could feel it coming out of my throat but couldn't hear a thing. Sebastian bolted.

It was all I could do to cling to him. He was out of control, wild and stampeding off the trail with a speed that was amazing for a horse his age. The saddle, his coat; they were so slippery that a few times I almost slid off. I ducked down low until I was almost lying on his back, my thighs screaming in agony as they clutched his heaving sides. I think my legs would have fallen off before I allowed them to relax, but I didn t have the chance to find out. Sebastian veered under a low-hanging branch that caught me off guard, and I was flung away from him, my body tumbling through the air and the world turning upside down around me. I landed on my side, a sharp pain blossoming in my head.

Then there was nothing.

* * *

I was climbing a free-floating staircase that stretched up into eternity. Every step took me closer to a golden light, but it also took me farther away from the safety of the ground. I peered over the edge and saw only black emptiness. I felt like I was walking through mud, each step used up all of my energy, but I still had to keep climbing. My legs hurt, a fire was burning steadily in my calves and ground glass had been injected into my hips. The closer I got to the light, the more painful it was.

I wondered if I could turn around and go back into the silent, quiet darkness below, but when I turned to look I saw the stairs behind me were gone too. I wanted to jump off the edge, but I instinctively knew that would be a terrible mistake.

I wanted to sit down, but I stood, staring at the light. Suddenly I felt a tremendous yank, as if a cord was tied around my midsection and I was being dragged by a team of wild horses. The hazy light grew brighter. I heard my name.

* * *

"Sarah?" It was muffled, but the voice was there. I turned my head away from the sound, which hurt my head.

"Sarah." Now it was more insistent. It was preventing me from going back to sleep, where the pain wasn t so great. I scowled and instantly regretted it; one minor facial movement and my world exploded in a red cloud of pain.

"Sarah!"

I cautiously opened my eyes. All I could see was a blurry white light. Eventually my eyes focused and I saw gauzy white draperies that extended up to the ceiling. It took a moment for me to realize it was a canopy.

I was in a bed, surrounded by drawn curtains of gently blowing silk.

"What happened?" My voice sounded like a bullfrog and my mouth was as dry as sawdust.

"You fell," an exotically accented voice informed me, from somewhere outside the draperies. I could only detect a dark shape. I still couldn't focus well; everything looked like I was peering through a film of Vaseline.

"Am I in a hospital?" It didn t look like a hospital to me, though. I tried to sit up and winced.

"No."

I finally made it upright, the bed spinning around me as a wave of dizziness washed over me. Finally everything stopped moving, and I brushed my hair out of my eyes.

"Where am I? And can I get a drink of water?"

"You are safe. Of course you may."

The dark shape moved towards me, and a gloved hand offering me a crystal goblet filled with water parted the curtains. It felt so good running down my parched throat I thought I was going to swoon. I tried to drink it slowly, conservatively, but I ended up gulping it down and then pressing a palm between my closed eyes, gasping in pain.

A weight settled next to me on the mattress as the water bearer with the melodic voice sat next to me on the bed. Leather-encased hands grasped my shoulders gently.

"Is everything all right?" He sounded overly concerned, and I waved him away, embarrassed.

"Don t worry, it s just brain freeze." Eventually it passed and my brain stopped throbbing. I smiled and opened my eyes. "Thanks though, I-"

The words were formed on my tongue but they died in my mouth as my jaw clamped shut. The Goblin King was staring anxiously at me.

Regardless of the pain in my body and the swarm of wasps in my head, I dropped the glass and scooted back on the bed. I only succeeded in getting tangled up in the sheets and banging my already abused skull against the gilt-edged headboard. I moaned and clutched my head, my eyes widening with fear as he bent over me.

"Sarah, do not be upset."

Upset. UPSET? I had obviously died and gone to hell! I wanted to scream, I wanted to kick and pound the bed until the world righted itself. Instead, I just looked at him helplessly. That moment? When years have spent fading a memory, and that moment that hits when it all comes back? It's not pleasant.

"I think I m going to throw up." That familiar sour taste dripped into the back of my mouth and my stomach clenched sickeningly tight. I rolled over, leaning my head over the bed, not caring about courtesy or appearance. He was good, though, I have to give him that: in one second he was standing and holding a golden basin to the side of the bed. I grabbed it and retched, my insides feeling as if someone was squeezing them tight in their fist. It made my head ache fiercely.

Eventually, long after my stomach was empty and I was only dry heaving, I managed to calm down. I set the washbasin down and wiped my mouth of the back of my head, suddenly feeling very weak. I looked up. He had his back to me, allowing some privacy in my sickness.

I blinked. It felt like my eyeballs had stretched in their sockets.

"I'm dead?"

He turned, that beautiful face beneath a spiky spill of golden hair regarding me with concerned pity. He shook his head slowly, and the long locks stirred around his face like chiffon in the wind.

"You would be, if I had not found you." His arms, which had been crossed over his chest, dropped silently to his sides. He stood tall, regal, and flawless in tan breeches, dark brown riding boots and a loose white tunic that opened in a deep V down his chest.

I closed my eyes and fell back. "I don t feel so good." Duh, I thought. You're lying in bed talking to a fantasy. You're probably dead. Of course you don t feel good.

"You have had a rough night. I suggest you sleep."

Sleep did sound so wonderful, letting the soft mattress surround me, bury my head in the mounds of pillows and draw the silk sheets up to my chin like a cocoon; what could be better? The sooner I fell asleep the sooner this would be behind me. But...

"If I have a concussion shouldn t I try to stay awake"?

The Goblin King moved to the bedside and, just like my mother used to, smoothed my hair away from my face in, and tucked me in under the cool sheets. He smiled softly.

"You do not have a concussion, Sarah. It is all right if you need to sleep."

"But I m not-" A yawn interrupted my sentence and proved me a liar, "-tired!" Stupid yawn.

"I promise you will feel a thousand times better when you wake up."

My eyelids were so heavy I didn t care about keeping them up any longer. My brain was so tired that I didn't care that I had hit my head, might possibly have a concussion, and by all rights should be dead but instead I was lying on silk sheets with a fantasy figure from my childhood taking care of me. What did it matter anyway? I let a painless sleep claim me.

* * *

I was dancing in a mirrored ballroom, just like the one from the fruit-induced dream when I was fifteen. Unlike all my other nighttime dreams, which were usually viewed through a clouded eye or as if watching through a long tunnel, this one was crystal clear.

Revelers on all sides, brightly festooned, well-inebriated partiers surrounded me. I had nothing to complain about; I felt light headed and very boisterous. And, just like the last time I was at the party, I felt the strong urge to look for someone someone I desperately needed to find.

Not this time, I said to nobody. I am an adult; if he wants me so bad, he can find me himself.

I let myself get lost in the dancing and giggling crowd. I was welcomed with open arms. A long, unmeasured amount of time passed in the heated room. I was constantly twirling and stepping out of the way of lecherous hands, shaking a finger at them back and forth in admonishment. What confused me then I understood now. I knew what that couple in the corner were doing. I knew why tongues licked along the edges of masks. And I knew why there were an ample amount of pillows and lounges set so conspicuously around the room. So much grabbing and pinching and kissing and passion- I ran into someone hard and fell down.

As my vision cleared I sniffled, and looked up._ He_ was standing there, dressed to the nines in that favorite blue beaded jacket, every inch of him a Goblin King.

And he didn t look very happy.

He pulled me to my feet. Instead of letting myself be led into the proper waltz stance, I moved against him, wrapping my arms around his waist and resting my chin on his chest so I could stare up into those mismatched eyes.

"You are not playing by the rules," he murmured, half annoyed that I was not staying in my innocent maiden role, and half intrigued at this new development.

I rubbed my cheek across his silk cravat, nestling my head against his shoulder and savoring the moment when his arms snaked around my waist to lock me in his embrace.

"This is a dream. Rules are meant to be broken here."

He tilted his head back slightly, his eyes stormy. "Do you mean that?"

In response, I snuggled impossibly closer to him, wiggling against his hard body. Any closer and something would have to be done with my ridiculous bell skirt. His arms tightened around me. I smiled up at him. He couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from my mouth. I took that as a good sign, and raised up on my toes and-

* * *

I awoke with a start, jerking in bed and my blood running cold through my veins as my eyes focused on an unfamiliar patch of sunlight.

I scratched my nose and looked around. The sheer curtains that surrounded the bed had been drawn, and an exotically antique room greeted me. It was not a room I had ever been in before. So where the hell was I?

"You are awake."

I froze at the sound of that voice, and the previous night came flooding back. I turned my head and there he was, the flamboyantly elegant Goblin King. He was wearing the same clothes as before; the first time I had ever seen him not change clothes in between appearances. He looked tired.

"Are you feeling better?"

I took a deep breath, and amazingly enough it didn't hurt. I stretched cautiously, and there was no sign of injuries from the fall. Lastly, I shook my head back and forth. Nothing.

I tried to not sound as surprised as I felt. "I'm fine, thanks." Tried not to blush about what I had been about to do in the dream.

He nodded, satisfied, but remained silent. We stared at each other for long moments before I pushed myself to a sitting position.

"You re him, aren't you"? Cliched, I know, but it was what came out. Judging by his reaction, it wasn t the right thing to say at all.

He frowned sadly. "Have you really forgotten us already?"

The sorrow in his voice hurt, and I drew my knees in to my chest, wrapping my arms around them for comfort. Why did I suddenly feel like I was on the defensive? I could see that it was vital my response not be a load of shit, so I closed my eyes and meditated for a moment. When was the last time, honest to God last time that I even thought about my time in the Labyrinth? Hoggle and Ludo and Sir Didymus, well, I hadn t thought about them in years. And him- the Goblin King Jareth -sure, I had thought about him off and on, took his memory out for dusting every so often, but not in awhile. I had been too busy.

But I _hadn't_ forgotten about them, I decided. They were always with me, it was just-

"I didn't forget," I said slowly, trying to form the thought into words, "I just grew up."

I shot a glance in his direction. In the last ten years, I matured, filled out, got older. He hadn't changed one fucking bit. His alien beauty was unmarred by a wrinkle; his posture had not stooped with time. I continued.

"The parties, the fantasies, I got too old for them." As I heard the words I knew they were true. Not believing was not the same as outgrowing, and I had done the latter. I didn t really think this was a dream, not deep down inside my heart. Sitting on a bed that was surely somewhere in the Goblin Castle made me realize that. Still, how do you tell your dream guy you outgrew him? My face flushed in the following uncomfortable silence.

"Hey, wait a minute." The sun had finally broken over the horizon of my common sense. "How did you know where I was, how did you know I fell?"

Now it was his turn to blush. He crossed his arms again and otherwise remained stock still, but I could see him squirming on the inside. I frowned.

Finally he sighed. "I knew because I have been watching you."

Unconsciously, I drew one of the humongous goose down pillows in front of me, creating a barrier. "Clarify the I have been watching you part."

Now he drew himself up to full height, every inch of him the Goblin King. Man o man, he was haughty even in his embarrassment.

"Occasionally, I have the opportunity to visit your world. When I do, I check in on you, to make sure everything is all right."

There was nothing subtle or unconscious about the indignant rage that was slowly coming to a boil. A tad too clumsily but forcefully all the same, I climbed off the large bed and marched toward him. I felt better facing him on two feet than flat on my back.

Standing before him, though, I was struck with a moment of hilarity.

"You're not as tall as I remembered." He was only four or five inches above me.

His eyes raked down my body. "I expect not. You...how did you put it...'grew up'." Judging by the appreciation in his eyes, he was well aware that wasn t the only thing that had changed about me. I followed his gaze and had to wrestle my way through a furious blush.

I was wearing a cream color silk nightgown that flowing all the way down to the tips of my bare toes but still left little to the imagination. I crossed my arms over my exposed chest.

"May I please have a robe?"

Making sure he took his time, he sauntered through a tiled archway and returned moments later with a darker off-white silk robe. It had an exaggerated collar and ruffles at the sleeves but I didn t care, anything to allow myself some decency.

"And just where did I get this this ensemble?"

"When I brought you here your clothes were soaked and torn. You had a fever. I was afraid if you remained in your wet garments it would be more harmful than good."

"You DRESSED me?"

"Would you have preferred pneumonia?"

I forced myself to calm down. Anger and yelling was not going to get me anywhere with the Goblin King.

"No, of course not. Thank you for saving my life." This was the longest conversation we had ever had to date. The prolonged exposure to his beauty was starting to affect my senses. I wanted to lose myself in his eyes. Not good, Sarah, not good!

Sensing my internal struggle, he smiled. "You are welcome."

Time to switch tracks.

"Now that we got that out of the way," I said calmly, pinning him with an angry stare, "where the HELL do you get off spying on me?"

His jaw dropped. He wasn t expecting that.

"I was not spying."

"You were watching me without my knowledge? What would YOU call that? How DARE you invade my life, Jareth!" Even as I said it, I couldn t believe I had used his first name so casually. I was too pissed to care. "Who gave you that right?"

I saw that I crossed an unknown line. The surprised look was wiped off his face, replaced by the cool and calculating mask of the Goblin King. It was not a subtle change.

"You did."

I gaped at him. "I did not."

"You did." Before I could argue, he pressed a gloved finger to my lips, his elegant eyebrows angling down in admonishment. His mismatched eyes bore into me, made me feel like I was standing before him naked.

"After you vanquished me and defeated the Labyrinth...after you were returned home...after you checked in on your brother and gave him your beloved teddy bear Lancelot, and you returned to your room..what did you say?"

His words made my blood run cold. He knew way more about my life than I was comfortable with. If he truly had been watching over me, think of all the embarrassing things he must have seen! But he was obviously expecting an answer so I closed my eyes and pressed my internal rewind button, trying to go back to that stormy night ten years ago.

_Sitting in front of my mirror, I was elated that I had won yet sad, because I was losing my friends. It had been a grand time, but all grand times had to come to an end...didn t they?_

_/I need you. I don t know why, but every now and again in my life, for no reason at all, I need you. ALL of you./_

As I heard the words in my head, they flowed from my lips. I opened my eyes. Jareth was nodding.

"Your admission that you still needed your friends in your life allowed us in." He paused, eyes dark and glittering. "**ALL** of us."

"But you're not-" I cut myself off so quickly I bit my tongue and winced. Still, it was better than actually finishing the sentence. 'But you're not my friend' would not go over well right now.

His proximity to me was starting to make my head swim, so I retreated, moving over to lean against the open windowsill. The cool breeze felt nice after being cooped up in the bed for so long, and it helped me clear my thoughts.

Be angry or see the reason in what he said. I was old enough to choose the quieter option. "I notice you didn t show up to any of our Scrabble tournaments," I said dryly.

He shrugged gracefully. "I did not think you were ready to see me again."

"And when Hoggle and I drank too much peach wine on my seventeenth birthday and he ended up getting sick all over my carpet and I had to take the blame?"

"You were not ready."

"And when I left for college, terrified about leaving home?" I was getting louder. Maybe I wasn't as mature as I thought. But the more I talked, the more I remembered, and the more I felt like I had been cheated out of something.

"I did not think you were ready." His voice was a low whisper.

I threw up my hands in disgust. "And I'm ready _now?_ If I hadn t hit my head, would you still have shown up?"

His silence was my answer. I snorted in annoyance.

"Well, while YOU were deciding what was best for ME, I managed to figure out a few things for myself."

"I have seen," he agreed, sidling closer until he stood only a foot away. It was near enough for me to be enveloped in his scent of magic and warm spices. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

"Just how much HAVE you seen? I don t exactly relish the idea of having shared my private moments without knowing. Just how far did your voyeuristic tendencies take you, huh?"

He circled me lazily while I stood in the angry center of his loop. "If you are worried that I invaded your privacy, you can lay those fears to rest. I have merely checked in on you from time to time to make sure you were all right."

"I can think of a few times over the last few years when I wasn t all right. Where was my guardian angel when I really needed him?" Angry and helpless, I crossed my arms and turned my back on him, staring out the window at the fluid Labyrinth. Boy, was THAT a mistake.

He moved up behind me, a wall of pure energy at my back. Gently, he swept my long fall of hair over my shoulder and lowered his face to my neck, his warm breath causing me to shiver involuntarily.

"Are you mad that I did not show myself sooner? Do you really want me in your life that much?"

The sexual tension I felt at his nearness blossomed into incredulous outrage.

"Are you kidding? You spy on ME, you kidnap ME and now you re insinuating it's because I wanted you to? Why on _earth_ would you think that? I mean where do you get _OFF?_"

There wasn t even a hint of uncertainty or doubt in his eyes as he bent to kiss me. That bastard.

There was no way I could hide my attraction when he kissed me. If I had tried to deny that this was something I had fantasized about, I would have been lying. For years I wondered about this moment, about how it would feel-

-and then I realized it was actually happening, and if I didn t stop thinking I would miss it completely.

My body betrayed my personal indignation; I was the one who pulled him closer as his lips moved above mine. My mouth opened easily, accepting the taste of him against my tongue. It was like he was drinking me slowly, savoring every ounce of pressure, every lick, every inch of my lips. It felt so much having waited so long that the little noises that slipped out of us stirred us on.

A string of soft kisses moved into one long, fierce kiss that left us both breathless. Our bodies wedged tightly together, I felt his arousal swell against my lower belly. It caused a wet fire to ignite between my legs, but at the same time, doused me with a wave of reality. What was I going to do, fuck the Goblin King right here? What kind of fairy tale was this?

I broke away, breathing heavily and trying to regroup my thoughts. I stepped back to a respectful distance and touched my lips; they were swollen from his kisses. I could still taste him.

"I think that should answer your question." He even sounded proud of himself for eliciting such a reaction from me.

"What? That? That answered _none_ of my questions."

"You still need me in your life." He was so proud, so sure of himself and his amorous abilities that I couldn't help it: I laughed in his face.

"All_ that_ proved is that I'm attracted to you! Who _wouldn'_t be?" HOWEVER lusting after the Goblin King does not equal wanting him in my life.

"Then you do desire me." His eyes glittered.

I gestured helplessly. "Of course I do. I always have." Said simply, it didn't hurt the way I imagined so long ago that it would have.

"What if I no longer hid myself? What if I wanted you in my life, every day?" Now all the arrogance was gone, his questions held only sincere honesty.

I had to cover the fact that my stomach had simultaneously imploded and exploded, and my heart was trying to dig its way out via my chest cavity. I was silent for a long moment.

"I'm not sure I understand," I said slowly.

"I am offering you your dreams," he said, producing a flawless crystal ball from nowhere and beginning to juggle it dexterously along the length of his arms. "Stay here, in the Underground, as my Queen. You can have the magic you always dreamed of!" He held it out to me.

I was bitter. His proposal was like a slap in the face. Once again I was being offered my dreams, and once again I had to turn them down. Not because I wanted to, but because I had responsibilities that chained me to my world. Was it the existence I had dreamed about? No, it wasn t; my life didn t have dangers untold but it certainly had hardships unnumbered. Was it fair? No, my life wasn t fair but it was MY LIFE. His grandiose gesture was too little too late.

"Wait, let me guess. This is no _ordinary_ gift for an _ordinary_ woman, who pays her taxes and checks her apartment for Radon and rotates her tires every six months, am I right?"

Confusion crept onto his exotic face, and deep down inside the blackest depths of my heart, I was glad. Let HIM have a taste of his own medicine for once, and see how it felt.

I was harsh. "So all I have to do is give up my family, my friends, my job, my life and in exchange for all of that, I get to stay here and be the Goblin Queen."

"You don t want to?" He was flabbergasted. My sadistic side grinned wickedly at him.

"Oh no," I laughed, "I want to. I want to very much. I want to be able to not worry about bills or traffic jams or my yearly Pap Smear ever again! I want all that so very much that it makes my_ teeth_ hurt. But you know what? I smoothed my hands down my thighs, drawing myself up to my tallest height, my lips lifting into a cruel grin. "This isn't a fairy tale. There is no happy ending."

Jareth shrank back from the terrible sight of my small smile. I could see him wanting to sneer, and failing. My response really had been totally astonishing, and he was trying to reestablish his natural confidence.

"Not even for love?"

Now I really was laughing at him. "LOVE? I don t even KNOW you, how could I _love_ you?"

"Years ago-"

I interrupted him. "Give me a break. I was fifteen. Don t confuse a childish infatuation a woman's lust with love."

Jareth looked totally crushed, and now little tendrils of guilt were beginning to creep up my spine. He was a magical creature, a Goblin King, attempting to make a connection with a 21st century woman who was schooled in Oprah's way of looking at relationships. My hostility gave way to a sudden flash of insight: for the first time in his life, Jareth was completely out of his element, and he was bravely trying to cover it up with his usual arrogance. Just like that, all my anger, all my bitterness and resentment translated into a much simpler emotion: sympathy.

I moved to him, placing my hand on his arm in a gesture of kindness.

"I appreciate your offer. I do. But things don t work that way with humans...when two people decide to come together in life, they have to compromise. You're asking me to sacrifice everything."

"But I have seen you struggle...I can make your life easier."

"For how long? How do you know you wouldn t tire of me within six years? Six months, six WEEKS even. And then what? We part ways and I have to go back into the world I had abandoned? It's not that _easy_."

"Then you do not love me," he said morosely, his eyes growing hard and fixing on a stationary point somewhere over my left shoulder. I really did want nothing more than to throw my arms around his neck and lose myself again in his kisses but that would be unfair to both of us.

"I don t _KNOW_ you, Jareth. How could I love you?" It was that simple.

I stared up at him, silently wishing that he would be able to understand. I wanted to get to know him, but not at the price he was asking. It was too much; all take and no give. His jaw was clenched and the muscles next to his left ear were twitching sporadically. I didn't disrespect his suffering; twice in his life he offered me my dreams and twice I flung them back in his face. I m sure it was a blow to his pride.

When he didn t answer me, I sighed and walked back to the bed, where my riding clothes were laid out, clean and pressed. I gathered them up in my arms and turned back to him. He hadn t moved.

"Everyone is probably worried about me. I d like to go home now."

He didn t answer me. He was turned mostly away, but I could still see his hands, which were clenched in fists at his sides. Without a word, he unclenched one of them. A crystal ball was resting in his palm. He turned, and I could see a tear sliding down his left cheek. Now that the drama was over, and my emotions were settling back into their familiar containers, that one tear caused my own eyes to fill. I didn t like hurting people. It wasn t fair that we didn t have a proper chance to see if it could work but that was life. It wasn t fair.

He lobbed the crystal in my direction. As it neared me, it slowed in its arc of descent until it hovered over my head. Anxiety laced through me as I wondered what it was going to do. As I watched, it exploded into a shower of magic, which tickled when it fell on me. The bedroom, and the Goblin King, faded into a blur. The image of Jareth, with that one tear, remained crystal sharp in my head even as I felt myself falling.

I closed my eyes against the shower of magic, and when I opened them, I was standing at the edge of the forest I had gone riding in two days prior, dressed in my torn but clean riding clothes. I spotted two teenagers on horseback as they rounded a corner of the trail, and started waving and yelling.

* * *

And that was the beginning of the end of my story. Nothing much of interest happened after that; they took me back to the ranch where I fibbed about falling asleep in a cave during the storm and getting lost on my way home. Phone calls were made, doctors prodded me with stethoscopes and threatened me with needles until I threatened them with bodily harm. Eventually I was allowed to go home, where another round of explanations were dished up for my family. No one questioned me. I am a great actress.

Not many people can say they turned down their dreams just to live with the joys of homework, scouring out dirty toilets and wrestling with cable television. Oh, that s not being totally honest. The true joys in my life came from spending time with my little brother Toby, who I still couldn t beat at Playstation 2, family dinners on Sunday nights, and walking down the cobblestone streets by my apartment to get a scoop of ice cream at the local ice cream parlor. Those were the real reasons why I turned the Goblin King down. I appreciate that he was my guardian angel but I was no damsel in distress; I did not need or want saving from...being a human.

Life settled back into its normal routine. I sold Sebastian, and it actually didn t hurt as much as I thought it would. I knew it was the best thing for both him and me. I still went to work, I still hung out with my friends on Saturday nights. However at least once a day, my eyes would drift off into space and my thoughts would turn to him the Goblin King, my guardian angel. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he thinking of me?

* * *

I got home from work later than usual; whenever it rained it seemed like the people in this stupid town forgot how to drive.

I parked outside my brick apartment building and scurried up the pathway, anxious to get out of the rain. I was so focused on digging my keys out of my suitcase sized purse that I didn t even notice the man who was huddled under the overhanging eaves until he spoke.

"If I had known it was going to be so cold I would have brought a jacket."

I screamed, falling against the side of the building. When my heart decided to restart, my eyes zeroed in on the tall, slim figure as it stepped out of the shadows. His hair, which usually fell in wild golden spikes, was now slicked back out of his face and hung neatly over his shoulders. Familiar mismatched eyes met mine, and Jareth grinned.

"You scared me half to death!" I gasped.

"Only halfway?" he grinned. "I must be losing my touch. I think it is the clothes you people wear; they do nothing for me."

Instinctively, my eyes raked down his length. He was wearing well worn jeans that hung low on his hips, black boots with stylish silver buckles and an ultra swank black button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. No gloves.

"I think you look fine," I heard myself say. I had to shake my head vigorously to get rid of the feeling of watching the scene from outside my own body. "What are you doing here?"

"Well lets just say I have an extended leave of absence from the Labyrinth. Going for centuries without a break builds up quite a lot of vacation time."

I gaped at him. "What are you_ talking_ about?"

He dropped the humor. "You were right. About everything. It was not fair to ask you to give up everything for me."

I just stared at him, open-mouthed.

"At a loss for words, Sarah? How extraordinary!" But he was smiling even as he teased.

I licked my lips and cleared my throat, trying to buy time for my thoughts to catch up to the situation.

"You're on vacation?"

He nodded, and stretched lithely. The action made my mouth water.

"I am, but getting here made me really tired. I had to leave most of my magic in the Underground, so I had to take the what was it again? The train to get here."

"A train from the Underground?"

"No, from Alameda."

I shook my head. I figured asking more questions about why he ended up in Alameda in the first place would only distract me from the real question I was burning to ask.

"Why did you come here?"

He sobered, pinning me against the building with the most intense gaze I have ever been the recipient of.

"I _do_ want you. I know you don t love me...yet...but I thought if we spent time together, you could get to know me," he finished, and then waited patiently in the rain.

I ran my hands through my wet hair, pushing it out of my face. Every couple had to start somewhere.

"Do you want to come up for coffee?" I asked.


End file.
